St. Patrick's Day *Infographic*

St. Patrick's Day is not a federal holiday although maybe it should be. It seems like everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day.

I definitely celebrate! After all, my name is Lisa Flaherty! That actually was my marriage name, but my maiden name was very much Irish too. My maiden name was Dougall. I did a little research and Dougall was actually McDougal from Scotland and they migrated to Ireland from Scotland and then to the United States. Somewhere along the way the spelling of the name changed to Dougall. So like I said, everyone on St. Patrick's Day is Irish!

I celebrate the day and the weekend prior by having a traditional Irish dinner. I have a one pot dinner. Slow cook the corned beef, cabbage, carrots, and potato all in one big pot on top of the stove or I put in in the crock pot. I usually face a personal dilemma of whether to have ham instead of corned beef. I cook it the same way - boiled dinner. So to save myself the agony this year at the beginning of March I made my ham, cabbage, potato's and carrots in the crock pot. I was able to get several meals out of that too!

If you are like me and love ham and cabbage here is how to get several meals out of it. I save all the leftovers - all the liquid too. I take a little from each of the leftovers and I cook them in a skillet on top of the stove, with a little butter. Turning occasionally so it starts to get brown. YUM this is one of my favorites! The following day I made pea soup - I took 4 cups of the liquid, cut up the ham, and carrots and just one potato add the peas, some dried onion, thyme and a bay leaf and add 3 more cups of water. Put it all in the crock pot - all at the same time in the morning - turned it on low and when I came home from work we had delicious Split pea soup with ham!

The following day we had leftovers again , but this time just the way they were originally -- just reheat and serve.. so quick and easy! On Day four it was soup time again - I again cut up the leftovers - everything - ham, cabbage, carrots, potato's, and about a cup of broth - and put in sauce pan on top of stove. I add thyme, a bay leaf, salt and pepper and a half a cup of whole milk. Slowly warm on the stove and serve with Saltine's!

Lastly, with the remainder of the ham, I put in the freezer for one of my all time favorite recipes - my kids love it too (a picky toddler & a picky teenager) - beans, greens and rice! If you want that recipe comment below or contact me!

In the spirit of St. Patrick's Day - here is an infographic with lots of fun information.